Leslie Leinwand of the University of Colorado at Boulder suspected that it's the fatty acids in the snake's blood that causes the heart to grow, so she coated the heart muscles of a rat and found it processed fats more efficiently and its metabolism increased. Researchers also injected fatty acids into the hearts of three healthy mice and found their tickers increased in size after a week with no scarring.

The next step is to test if the blood has a positive affect on subjects who've suffered severe heart attacks or have heart disease.